


The Non-Break-Up Break Up (or How Remus Lupin Attempts to Understand)

by littleisle



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-11
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 15:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/457093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleisle/pseuds/littleisle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus Snape finally leaves. Remus Lupin tries to understand his feelings, but first he has to know what they are.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Non-Break-Up Break Up (or How Remus Lupin Attempts to Understand)

**Author's Note:**

> Yet again, this is another product of my dissatisfaction with the dynamic of Snupin relationships. Particularly, when Lupin still harbours long lost feelings for a certain Black haired male while in a relationship with another. Hmm.

"I found someone else," Remus didn't know why he didn't expect this sooner. The nature of their... relationship or arrangement or whatever one would call it, was that, according to Remus, each had turned to the other because neither had anyone left.

(Selfishly, in the hidden dark corners of his mind, he had believed that he would be the one to leave the other wanting and lonely and needy in their arrangement, not the other way round.)

It was easy at first, Remus thinks. He had told Snape that he didn't love him. That he had needed Remus then just as much as Remus needed him, maybe even more. Regardless of whether or not that was true, Snape merely gave a huff of a breath against his cheek and proceeded. If sometimes Remus screamed Sirius' name, Snape said nothing.

They used to kiss frantically, never softly. Heated, passionate, and painful, Remus remembers. Never loving - or so he had thought. He remembers the smooth caress of a thin, long hand on his face early dawn, just after the remains of the moon finally disappeared. He remembers an indulgent small smile, a listening ear, comforting teas.

Snape gives no excuses, no faux comforts, or lying facades in attempt to sooth Remus' feelings over the break in their relationship. This is what makes Remus question, again, whether or not they had one to begin with. This why perhaps Remus realizes he would miss Snape more than he anticipated.

Snape offers no usual clichés of "It isn't you, it's me," - and damn if Remus would have believed him if he had said it anyways - or "You'll find someone who deserves you."

(Cautiously, in the hidden dark corners of his mind, he contemplates whether or not he deserves -)

In actuality, he finds Snape packing up the last of his things from their - their, now his, always their - little hovel. Before Remus could say anything, Snape tells him.

Remus remembers now. Or rather, he had enough beer to afford himself a little slip of the truth that cuts into him more sharply than the broken shards of glass are now cutting into the skin of his palm as he clenches his hands. Snape had said "I found someone." The concluding else of that statement was simply the product of some desperate attempt by Remus' traitorous mind to make sense of it all. Remus knows that he could not have heard anything, save the throbbing of his own head.

That is why Remus had just numbly stood there while Snape made the final touches of his leavings before, with a nod of acknowledgment – no tears, no hugs, no kisses – he finally departed. Remus does not know how long he stood for. Could have been days, could have been seconds. He looked around the kitchen for any sign of Snape, of them, before he concludes that the kitchen really hasn't changed at all. There was still the bronze faucet, the low wooden table with three overworn brown chairs and a misplaced stool. There was still the unused coffee maker that had been a gift from someone, from somewhere; Remus couldn't be bothered to remember. The dirty dish rag was still hanging from the hook at the side of the wall. The light of the Afternoon’s sun was still shining as it always had, through the stained window to reach and bounce off the utensils that were drying on the dish rack. Remus' mug was still alongside several grey plates and some mismatched drinking glasses.

And that's when Remus sees it. Or rather he doesn't see it, and that's what jolts him out of his stupor. There was - of this he was certain – an unimpressionable space between the wall of the shelf and his mug, that for some reason, Remus was unable to remove his eyes from. He blinks as if to rid off, to eliminate, to eradicate, to God damn it remove that space by making something appear in it. Snape's red cup, Remus realizes, Snape must have taken his cup with him. Remus thinks wryly that Snape must have forgotten that the cup wasn't his.

Quietly, in the hidden dark corners of his mind, Remus remembers all too well just how much Snape never forgets anything. And this is when he smiles.


End file.
